Other Main-Travelled Roads | Page 9

outdoors, his neighbors said; and of old man Bacon it was
said he never rested nights nor Sundays.
Jennings pulled up. "Good morning, neighbor Bacon."
"Mornin'," rumbled the old man without looking up.
"Taking it easy, as usual, I see. Think it's going to clear up?"
"May, an' may not. Don't make much differunce t' me," growled Bacon,
discouragingly.
"Heard about the plan for a church?"
"Naw."
"Well, we're goin' to hire Elder Pill from Douglass to come over and
preach every Sunday afternoon at the schoolhouse, an' we want help t'
pay him--the laborer is worthy of his hire."
"Sometimes he is an' then agin he ain't. Y' needn't look t' me f'r a dollar.
I ain't got no intrust in y'r church."
"Oh, yes, you have--besides, y'r sister--"
"She ain't got no more time 'n I have t' go t' church. We're obleeged to
do 'bout all we c'n stand t' pay our debts, let alone tryun' to support a
preacher." And the old man shut the pinchers up on a barb with a
vicious grip.
Easy-going Mr. Jennings laughed in his silent way. "I guess you'll help
when the time comes," he said, and, clucking to his team, drove off.
"I guess I won't," muttered the grizzled old giant as he went on with his
work. Bacon was what is called land poor in the West, that is, he had
more land than money; still he was able to give if he felt disposed. It

remains to say that he was not disposed, being a sceptic and a scoffer. It
angered him to have Jennings predict so confidently that he would help.
The sun was striking redly through a rift in the clouds, about three
o'clock in the afternoon, when he saw a man coming up the lane,
walking: on the grass at the side of the road, and whistling merrily. The
old man looked at him from under his huge eyebrows with some
curiosity. As he drew near, the pedestrian ceased to whistle, and, just as
the farmer expected him to pass, he stopped and said, in a free and easy
style:--
"How de do? Give me a chaw t'baccer. I'm Pill, the new minister. I take
fine-cut when I can get it," he said, as Bacon put his hand into his
pocket. "Much obliged. How goes it?"
"Tollable, tollable," said the astounded farmer, looking hard at Pill as
he flung a handful of tobacco into his mouth.
"Yes, I'm the new minister sent around here to keep you fellows in the
traces and out of hell-fire. Have y' fled from the wrath?" he asked, in a
perfunctory way.
"You are, eh?" said Bacon, referring back to his profession.
"I am, just! How do you like that style of barb fence? Ain't the twisted
wire better?"
"I s'pose they be, but they cost more."
"Yes, costs more to go to heaven than to hell. You'll think so after I
board with you a week. Narrow the road that leads to light, and broad
the way that leads--how's your soul anyway, brother?"
"Soul's all right. I find more trouble to keep m' body go'n."
"Give us your hand; so do I. All the same we must prepare for the next
world. We're gettin' old; lay not up your treasures where moth and rust
corrupt and thieves break through and steal."

Bacon was thoroughly interested in the preacher, and was studying him
carefully. He was tall, straight, and superbly proportioned;
broad-shouldered, wide-lunged, and thewed like a Chippewa. His rather
small steel-blue eyes twinkled, and his shrewd face and small head, set
well back, completed a remarkable figure. He wore his reddish beard in
the usual way of Western clergymen, with mustache chopped close.
Bacon spoke slowly:--
"You look like a good, husky man to pitch in the barn-yard; you've too
much muscle f'r preachun'."
"Come and hear me next Sunday, and if you say so then, I'll quit,"
replied Mr. Pill, quietly. "I give ye my word for it. I believe in
preachers havin' a little of the flesh and the devil; they can sympathize
better with the rest of ye." The sarcasm was lost on Bacon, who
continued to look at him. Suddenly he said, as if with an involuntary
determination:--
"Where ye go'n' to stay t'night?"
"I don't know; do you?" was the quick reply.
"I reckon ye can hang out with me, 'f ye feel like ut. We ain't very purty,
at our house, but we eat. You go along down the road and tell 'em I sent
yeh. Ye'll find an' ol' dusty Bible round some'rs--I s'pose ye spend y'r
spare time read'n' about Joshua an' Dan'l--"
"I spend more time reading men. Well, I'm off! I'm hungrier 'n a gray
wolf in a bear-trap." And